I have nothing of substance to contribute to this conversation, so I'll just note that every time I see this guy's name, I want to read a story about him gay-marrying Elon Musk so we could have Elon Elop.

PirateKing:I have nothing of substance to contribute to this conversation, so I'll just note that every time I see this guy's name, I want to read a story about him gay-marrying Elon Musk so we could have Elon Elop.

I also have nothing to contribute , but it saddens me that I already know that this is probably the funniest thing I will read today.

PirateKing:I have nothing of substance to contribute to this conversation, so I'll just note that every time I see this guy's name, I want to read a story about him gay-marrying Elon Musk so we could have Elon Elop.

CheatCommando:drjekel_mrhyde: Nokia was tanking before he got there. He was in the process of trying to right the ship./In before the "they should've went Android" drones

If "rearranging the deck chairs" and "changing the brand of champagne served at the Captain's table" counts as "trying to right the ship" maybe.

Going Windows Phone was probably the best move they could make for the long-haul and I maintain still is. Their short-term income could've been a lot better if they kept Meego going but we're seeing Android and to a lesser extent iOS rapidly eating the low-end market now.

As bad as Microsoft is with maintaining a software ecosystem, Nokia's internal team was far far worse.

imgod2u:CheatCommando: drjekel_mrhyde: Nokia was tanking before he got there. He was in the process of trying to right the ship./In before the "they should've went Android" drones

If "rearranging the deck chairs" and "changing the brand of champagne served at the Captain's table" counts as "trying to right the ship" maybe.

Going Windows Phone was probably the best move they could make for the long-haul and I maintain still is. Their short-term income could've been a lot better if they kept Meego going but we're seeing Android and to a lesser extent iOS rapidly eating the low-end market now.

As bad as Microsoft is with maintaining a software ecosystem, Nokia's internal team was far far worse.

I have to disagree. I know this'll get me labeled as a "drone", but they really should have gone Android. Most of the work they did with Meego could easily have been ported over to Android, and they at least would have been contending with the rest of the market on equal footing, rather than having their fortunes tied to Windows Phone and making the battle for market share that much harder on themselves. I'm not saying things would have ended up better for them, but they could hardly have ended up worse.

Ace Rimmer:PirateKing: I have nothing of substance to contribute to this conversation, so I'll just note that every time I see this guy's name, I want to read a story about him gay-marrying Elon Musk so we could have Elon Elop.

imgod2u:Going Windows Phone was probably the best move they could make for the long-haul and I maintain still is. Their short-term income could've been a lot better if they kept Meego going but we're seeing Android and to a lesser extent iOS rapidly eating the low-end market now.

As bad as Microsoft is with maintaining a software ecosystem, Nokia's internal team was far far worse.

Once an open source player gets a majority market share, it only ever gets replaced with another piece of open source. I know no exception to this rule. Which means that Nokia/Windows is never going to get off the ground. Even if they make it better and even if Google drop the ball, someone will make Android better, because they can always grab the source and modify it.

What Nokia always did best was make good phones, as in, the radio bit. I know a security business that has Nokia dumbphones for their on-call rota because they hardly use power and if you can get a signal on any phone, it'll be a Nokia. That's why they got creamed in the smartphone market - they had no idea at all about things like UI and making applications easy to manage. They could have done really well in the Android market because they make really good hardware.

If it was only about phones, I might consider it. But I also have a Nexus tablet for my account, so if I buy an app, I can use it on both machines. What's my tablet option for Windows phone? Surface?

farkeruk:imgod2u: Going Windows Phone was probably the best move they could make for the long-haul and I maintain still is. Their short-term income could've been a lot better if they kept Meego going but we're seeing Android and to a lesser extent iOS rapidly eating the low-end market now.

As bad as Microsoft is with maintaining a software ecosystem, Nokia's internal team was far far worse.

Once an open source player gets a majority market share, it only ever gets replaced with another piece of open source. I know no exception to this rule. Which means that Nokia/Windows is never going to get off the ground. Even if they make it better and even if Google drop the ball, someone will make Android better, because they can always grab the source and modify it.

What Nokia always did best was make good phones, as in, the radio bit. I know a security business that has Nokia dumbphones for their on-call rota because they hardly use power and if you can get a signal on any phone, it'll be a Nokia. That's why they got creamed in the smartphone market - they had no idea at all about things like UI and making applications easy to manage. They could have done really well in the Android market because they make really good hardware.

If it was only about phones, I might consider it. But I also have a Nexus tablet for my account, so if I buy an app, I can use it on both machines. What's my tablet option for Windows phone? Surface?

The problem with going the Android route is that you really do have to do your own software work. Google will give you some help, maybe, possibly and they'll give you the source code. But making the thing run on your hardware and especially trying to differentiate yourself by providing your own nav, camera processing, etc. required expertise that Nokia simply didn't have. The biggest advantage going Windows Phone had was that Microsoft was willing to just step in and run the software side.

This isn't like the PC side where you can grab a copy of Android and install it on commodity hardware. Every single phone is different and requires slight tweaks to the OS to run on it.

imgod2u:farkeruk: imgod2u: Going Windows Phone was probably the best move they could make for the long-haul and I maintain still is. Their short-term income could've been a lot better if they kept Meego going but we're seeing Android and to a lesser extent iOS rapidly eating the low-end market now.

As bad as Microsoft is with maintaining a software ecosystem, Nokia's internal team was far far worse.

Once an open source player gets a majority market share, it only ever gets replaced with another piece of open source. I know no exception to this rule. Which means that Nokia/Windows is never going to get off the ground. Even if they make it better and even if Google drop the ball, someone will make Android better, because they can always grab the source and modify it.

What Nokia always did best was make good phones, as in, the radio bit. I know a security business that has Nokia dumbphones for their on-call rota because they hardly use power and if you can get a signal on any phone, it'll be a Nokia. That's why they got creamed in the smartphone market - they had no idea at all about things like UI and making applications easy to manage. They could have done really well in the Android market because they make really good hardware.

If it was only about phones, I might consider it. But I also have a Nexus tablet for my account, so if I buy an app, I can use it on both machines. What's my tablet option for Windows phone? Surface?

The problem with going the Android route is that you really do have to do your own software work. Google will give you some help, maybe, possibly and they'll give you the source code. But making the thing run on your hardware and especially trying to differentiate yourself by providing your own nav, camera processing, etc. required expertise that Nokia simply didn't have. The biggest advantage going Windows Phone had was that Microsoft was willing to just step in and run the software side.

This isn't like the PC side where you can grab a copy of An ...

You're saying that the company that developed Symbian and Maemo, and worked closely with Intel on MeeGo, didn't have the software expertise to customize Android?

I think anyone who has seen the results of drop tests for Samsung phones can categorically say that if Nokia had been in the running for Android phone supremacy right from the start, then Samsung would have got their ass handed to them just on the question of build quality.

HeartBurnKid:That's one more successful Android maker than successful Windows Phone maker. Just saying.

Would you rather be HTC, where you can make awesome hardware but go largely unnoticed, or be Nokia, where you can make awesome hardware that goes unnoticed but one of the largest, most cash-rich companies in the world NEEDS you and will throw the kitchen sink at you to see you succeed?

imgod2u:Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi are doing remarkably well selling Android to the land that makes iPhones.

Valid point. For what it's worth, Nokia is also doing pretty well in a good number of smaller markets. Lots of places in Europe (UK, France, Italy, Poland I think), some places in Latin America, also India as well have WP with 10% or above marketshare. Nokia makes up somewhere of 80%-90% of all WP devices sold.

Still very, very lackluster in the big ones, US and China, but it's not entirely a bleak outlook for the platform as a whole.